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Updated Nov. 5, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

The House of Gucci has presented the fashion world with one pressing question after another over the course of its 80-year history. Would handbags with bamboo handles sell? Could a Texan designer wow Milan and Paris?

The answers to both were yes. But now Gucci is raising its biggest question by far: Is it possible to run a big luxury-goods company like an automobile or toothpaste-and-soap conglomerate, built on size and scale and not...